


New Man

by PDXMoxie94



Series: "Divide" Dramione [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M, One Shot, Songfic, dramione - Freeform, minor fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 21:52:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10862817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PDXMoxie94/pseuds/PDXMoxie94
Summary: Draco had Hermione. Draco lost Hermione. McLaggen has Hermione. Draco wants Hermione. Hermione wants to talk about Cormac. Draco doesn't want to know.





	New Man

**Author's Note:**

> Songfic inspired by "New Man" by Ed Sheeran. I do not own the lyrics or the characters, those belong to the rightful original creators of each work respectfully. 
> 
> Potential for more one-shots based on Ed's newest album "Divide".

I don’t wanna know about your new man…

Draco scowled at the open newspaper in front of him. Cormac McLaggen was smirking up at him from the gossip column, enchanted arm squeezing the waist of a vaguely uncomfortable looking Hermione Granger. While McLaggen looked overly pleased with himself, Hermione appeared to be trying to figure out the best way out of his grasp. The caption under the moving photo taunted Draco; McGranger, the Wizarding World’s Newest IT Couple. Every few seconds Hermione would look at the camera and offer a stiff, practiced smile. Draco shoved the paper away and sipped at his tea in bitter silence. 

“Don’t know why in the world she’d go for that prat,” he muttered into the teacup. “The only thing he’s good at is making an arse of himself.”

“Talking about McLaggen, are you?”

Draco looked up, startled, as Blaise Zambini slid into the room. The tall young man glanced down at the open paper. A single sculpted brow arched in interest.

“McGranger, huh? That’s the best that they could come up with?” Blaise asked. He slid into a chair and scanned the article that accompanied the picture.

“It’s disgusting,” Draco grumbled. Blaise glanced at him.

“Oh it is, is it? Why would that be? It’s not as if you were shagging each other nearly every other night for months on end,” Blaise said calmly. Draco, mid-swallow, fought the urge to cough in surprise.

“I have no idea what you’re referring to,” Draco said. 

“Of course you don’t. Just like you won’t have any idea where the stray cat hairs and not-so-hidden Muggle books came from.”

“No idea whatsoever.” Blaise turned to look Draco head on. His distant disinterest melted into barely-visible concern.

“But if you had been shagging, and if you are upset about McGranger,” Blaise said, drawing out the couple’s name. “You could tell me.”

Draco set his teacup down and looked at his longtime friend. 

“Maybe we were. Maybe I am. Maybe,” Draco paused and looked out the window of their apartment. “Maybe I don’t like the way I feel about the whole ordeal.”

Blaise was silent and then,

“Maybe I shouldn’t be the one you talk to then.”

Draco kept his eyes on the window, not looking at anything in particular, as Blaise slipped out of the room as quietly as he had entered it.

But I heard he makes you happy, so that’s fine by me…

A few weeks later, Draco was in the back corners of Flourish and Blotts when someone came sharply around the corner of the nearest bookcase, crashing right into him.

“Oy, watch where you’re going would you? It’s a bookstore, not a bloody Quidditch field,” Draco snapped. 

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was,” the other person paused. “Oh, hello Draco.”

Hermione looked up at him with her large brown eyes and Draco felt his whole body relax at the sound of his name coming from her lips.

“Oh, hello,” Draco said. “What are you doing here, Hermione?”

“It’s a bookstore,” Hermione said. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

“Right,” he said. “But why are you in the back?”

“Oh,” Hermione’s eyes darted away, chin tucking down towards her chest. “I may or may not be hiding.”

“From who? Paparazzi?” Hermione’s silence was the only answer he needed.

“You’re hiding from McLaggen aren’t you.”

Hermione wrung her hands in front of her as she looked up at Draco, embarrassment clear in her eyes.

“Yes,” she said quietly. Draco rolled his eyes at her.

“Of course you are. He is a git after all.”

“Yes, well…”

The pair stood in silence, a bookshelf apart, each one observing the other. 

“Must be nice, being public,” Draco said.

“Yes,” Hermione replied. She looked down and then back up at him. “Yes, it is.” “Bet Weasel wasn’t too happy about your…coupling.”

“Ah, no, Ron wasn’t pleased. But it’s not like he has any right to have an opinion. It’s my relationship after all.”

“That it is,” Draco murmured. He looked down at her, remembering the feel of her tight curls between his fingers, how her warm brown skin would heat beneath his touch.

“Does he make you happy?”

“What?”

“Does he make you happy?” Draco repeated. Hermione looked at him with confusion in her eyes.

“I suppose he does,” she said slowly. Draco felt the words sink into his skin. He took a breath and let it out, trying not to let his jaw clench.

“Good.”

I know you’re missing all this kind of love…

Rain pelted against the windows, beating at the glass with a vengeance. Draco watched the trees blow in the wind, fingers curled around a steaming cup of tea. The sound of the storm was soothing, blending with the radio playing in the kitchen down the hall. A slim paperback book was in his lap, two bookmarks sticking out of it. One was where it had been left by the previous owner, the other where Draco had just paused at. He was about to return to the pages when a knock sounded on the door.

Draco sighed and rose to his feet, setting his cup of tea down on a nearby coaster before shuffling across the hardwood floors to the front door. He glanced out the enchanted peephole to see a sopping wet Hermione standing in front of the door.

He opened the door, eyebrows raised. But before he could say anything the young witch was in the apartment, casting a drying spell on herself.

“I can’t take it anymore!” Hermione cried as soon as she was dry. 

“Take what?” Draco asked.

“The photographers, the gossip, the Quidditch games, the the the,” Hermione stumbled. “All of it! I can’t take it anymore!” 

“I take it you’re talking about McLaggen,” Draco said.

“Of course I am,” Hermione snapped. She flopped down onto this couch, right across from where he had been sitting just moments before.

“What happened?” Draco asked.

“Just…the whole thing!” Hermione said. “Everywhere we go we’re tailed by paparazzi. Every morning there’s a new speculation about our relationship, or sometimes just about me, in the Daily Prophet. I can’t go anywhere, I can’t talk to anybody, I can’t breathe in this relationship.”

“So you don’t enjoy being the other half of McGranger?” Draco asked dryly. Hermione groaned and covered her face with her hands.

“Don’t get me started on that bloody nickname. I hate it more than anything. I wish I could burn it. I hate names,” she said into her hands. Draco glanced at her arm where he knew her scar was beneath her sleeve.

“Names can be a terrible thing,” he said. “Would you like some tea?”

“Something stronger would be better, if you don’t mind,” Hermione said. Draco nodded, mostly to himself, and went to fix them both a stiff drink.

When he returned, Hermione was skimming the page he had been on in his book.

“You’re reading The Handmaid’s Tale?” Hermione asked.

“I am. You left it here,” Draco said. He passed her a steaming mug.

“What is this?”

“Tea with fire whiskey. For the rain.”

“Thanks,” Hermione said. She sipped at the drink, shaking her head at the taste.

“Merlin’s beard, that’s strong,” she said.

“For your joyous consumption.”

“Cheers.”

The pair drank in companionable silence. Draco relished the way the fire whiskey burned at the sweetness of the tea, how it settled in his stomach and flooded into his system.

“So, Granger, how’d you end up at my flat?”

“I, well, I was losing my mind. I needed to get away from Cormac and everything else, and I thought of you and wanted to see you and”

“And you thought you would talk to me and I would listen because Saint Potter is too busy and Weasel would say ‘I told you so’ if you tried to talk to him.” Hermione had the decency to look embarrassed at getting caught. “Yes.”

“Granger, I’m flattered, but I don’t want to hear about McLaggen,” Draco said.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I just thought. I thought we were friends.”

“No, we were enemies, and then acquaintances, and then fuck buddies, but we have never been friends.”

“Oh. But, you seemed so…you went along with the idea of being more than acquaintances…I just thought.”

“Granger,” Draco sighed. “For a smart girl you are quite daft. Does McLaggen even know you’re here right now?”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Just like no one ever knew that we were ‘more than acquaintances’?”

“Yes.” 

“See,” Draco said. He took a gulp of his toddy. “We’re still not friends. If we were friends, you would tell McLaggen where you were.”

“That’s not fair Draco. I don’t have to tell him anything.”

“I bet you tell him when you’re with Potter and Weasel.” “So what if I do?”

“If we’re friends, if you think we’re friends, why not tell him you’re at my flat? Why hide it?”

“Because.”

“Because why, Granger?” “Just because, Draco!”

“If you won’t say it then I will.”

“There is no reason!”   
“Yes there is, you know bloody well there is. You won’t tell him that you’re with me because you’re embarrassed. You don’t want people to know that you’re here. You don’t want him to know, because he wouldn’t like it, and you can’t stand not being liked!”   
“That’s not true!”   
“Is it then? So if that’s not true, if you’re not embarrassed to be seen with me, then let me ask you this, Granger. Why is it, that when you wanted something more than fucking, something public, you didn’t ask me?” 

Hermione looked at Draco with wide eyes. “What?” “Why didn’t you ask me, Hermione? Why didn’t you ask what I wanted?”

Draco clenched his trembling jaw and forced himself to hold Hermione’s startled gaze, even as he felt his face flush and his eyes water.

“I didn’t think.”

“Clearly.”

“Draco, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you would want to be with me, publicly. Because of your mother.”

“Seriously? My mother?”

“You…I didn’t think you wanted me, like that. I thought it was just physical.” “Just physical…Merlin’s hairy ballsack Hermione, you really are daft. Of course I wanted you. I’d be stupid not to.”

“Oh.”

Outside the storm raged on and the unlikely pair sat on the couch, alcoholic tea and a paperback book between them. “You never told me.” “You never asked.”  
…

“Draco, how do you feel about me?” Hermione finally asked. Draco looked at her, sitting there like she had never left his flat, never left his bed. She looked exactly as he always imagined her. Untamable curls wild around her face, large eyes nervous but her brows set in determination.

“I like you, Hermione. I have for a long time now,” Draco said quietly. Hermione studied him in silence. Draco watched her, his whole body tense, waiting for her to speak. He was about to break the silence himself when she finally took one last big drink from her mug before speaking.

“Cormac won’t be pleased when I break up with him,” she said matter-of-factly.

I don’t wanna know about your new man…


End file.
